Submitted by crinadmin on
[16 January 2008] - On 14th January, Jacqui Smith MP, Home Secretary, announced that the Government will ratify the Council of Europe Trafficking Convention by the end of this year. She also announced a review of the Government reservation on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN CRC).
"ECPAT UK welcomes this news. The ratification of the Council of Europe Trafficking Convention and the withdrawal of the reservation to the UN CRC have been two of three goals that ECPAT UK and World Vision have been campaigning for as part of their Three Small Steps campaign,” said Christine Beddoe, director of ECPAT UK.
A few months ago the Government said it did not intend to ratify the Trafficking Convention before 2009 or even 2010. Does this make any difference? A Government commissioned report published last year found that 183 children who were trafficked or suspected of being trafficked disappeared from the care of twenty two local authorities between March 2005 and December 2006. With the standards of the Council of Europe Convention fully applied earlier than expected there is now a better chance to prevent the disappearance and re-trafficking of, potentially, hundreds of children.
The review of the reservation to the UN CRC is a major breakthrough, even though a review has been carried out before in 2004 which concluded that the reservation would stay. ECPAT UK maintains its position that this reservation is discriminatory and should be fully withdrawn.
As part of its anti-trafficking strategy the Government also announced last year that it would ratify the Optional Protocol to the UN CRC on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography by the summer of 2007. This has not happened and neither has the ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse which opened for signature on 25-26 October 2007.